'˜Stupid' students jailed for celebration of prison let-off with MDMA and cocaine

Bitaam Konlan, 22, and pal Omar Lamin, 24, went out to celebrate when Konlan was given bail for a drug offence at Portsmouth Crown Court.

But they were picked up by police that night after circling a roundabout over the A27, having been on the M27 when they left Gosport.

Officers searched their BMW and found £290 worth of MDMA and cocaine under the steering wheel column and dash, with £340 in the car and £120 in Konlan’s pocket.

Earlier that day, November 24 last year, a judge warned Konlan he faced jail after he admitted possession with intent to supply cannabis.

Portsmouth Crown Court heard Konlan and Lamin, who had been in court with his pal, decided to celebrate Konlan being given bail.

Prosecutor James Kellam said: ‘On November 24, so on the day Konlan entered pleas to an offence of possession with intent to supply cannabis in Portsmouth, police saw a BMW driving east along the M27 having come up from Gosport.

‘It was seen driving a number of times around the roundabout over the A27 before it was stopped on the slip road by a number of police vehicles.’

Konlan had been given bail on that day after being caught with cannabis in St James’s Road, Southsea, on June 6, last year. He said he was going to give it to a ‘small number of friends’ at a recording studio.

The former University of Portsmouth students had both previously been convicted at Guildford Crown Court of possession with intent to supply cannabis, a class B drug.

They were given suspended terms on December 22, 2015, of eight months for Lamin and 12 for Konlan.

Both their lawyers said the case should be treated ‘exceptionally’ as the men had completed much of their earlier probation work.

They said their clients’ actions were ‘stupid’, with Konlan’s lawyer adding they had gone on ‘one last hurrah’ expecting him to be jailed.

The men admitted two charges of possession of class A drugs.

Sentencing Konlan, judge David Melville QC said it was ‘staggering’ he went out the night of his court case.

The judge said: ‘It has been urged on me to merciful. I would do that if I felt it appropriate: I don’t.’

He jailed Konlan for a year – made up of six months of his suspended term and six months for possession.

Lamin, of Wyndham Road, Chatham, was jailed for eight months, with four months from his suspended term and four months for the latest.

Despite being jailed Konlan, of St George’s Close, Thameswood, still has a suspended term for his second cannabis offence, as it was imposed after he committed the third offence – meaning he did not breach it.